The Arctic Event

by James Cobb

  Kretek swept a shelf full of hard-copy files onto the lab hut’s floor. Bracing a booted foot against the heater, he rocked it off its mounts. With a smoky clatter of falling stovepipe, it tipped onto its side, spraying burning coals. A score of flame tongues sprang up amid the scattered papers. The two men filed out through the snow lock, leaving the legacy of Wednesday Island Station to burn.

  Outside, the quiet air seemed mild in comparison to the cold-fanged wind of yesterday. Directly overhead, the blue of a clear sky filtered down through the mist and the terrain around the station was swiftly regaining definition and color. As was frequently the case, the morning’s sea smoke was dissipating as rapidly as it had come on. The men’s voices lifted in exuberance, and their movements quickened in automatic response to the coming sun.

  Kretek and Vlahovitch were just starting their trudge out to the landing ground when one of the perimeter sentries yelled an alarm.

  A figure stood atop the antenna knoll-a small, slender figure clad in red ski pants and a floppy, oversized green sweatshirt, its hood drawn over her head. She looked down at the station and its startled inhabitants for a moment more; then she turned and was gone, dropping out of sight down the far side of the hill, a hasty burst of gunfire futilely chasing after her.

  Kretek turned on Vlahovitch, massive fists engulfing the front of his lieutenant’s parka. For a moment Vlahovitch thought he was a dead man.

  “So if she didn’t die then, she had to die later!” Kretek’s glare burned red-eyed with the focused rage of a charging boar. “I want her dead this time, Mikhail! For certain! Now!” He converted his grip into a shove. “Get after her!”

  “At once, sir! Lazlo! Prishkin!” Vlahovitch lifted his voice in a half-strangled shout. “You and your fire teams, follow me! Move, you bastards! Move!”

  Unslinging his submachine gun, Vlahovitch fled as much as he started to chase, laboring up the hill toward the place where the figure had disappeared. You simply did not fail Anton Kretek in this kind of catastrophic fashion and survive. Even if he succeeded in catching and killing the girl now, the odds of his getting off Wednesday Island alive were not good. But if he failed to bring her head back, they were nonexistent.

  Valentina Metrace kept to the hard-packed and flagged station trails. Wallowing in the soft unbroken drifts would be slow death. There were several inches of fresh snow in the bottoms of the trail troughs, but she had the legs and lungs to cope with it. She kept in trim by running two or more miles daily, and not mere roadwork, but steeplechase orienteering over broken ground. In the field, she could match the old ivory hunter’s standard of twenty miles from dawn to dusk, walking and trotting, while carrying a light rucksack and a heavy-caliber rifle.

  For this run though she was traveling light: clothes, knives, a single white camo survival blanket, and a steel signaling mirror. It enhanced her mobility edge over her more heavily laden pursuers.

  After allowing herself to be seen, Valentina had angled down to the main trail along the island’s southern shoreline. Heading eastward, she alternated between an easy jog and a fast walk, carefully managing her breathing, ground coverage, and energy reserves. She had the edge here as well. She knew how far she had to go, how rapidly she needed to get there, and what was going to happen once she arrived.

  She stayed focused on the trail ahead, taking care with each step and keeping to the easiest, safest, and most efficient path. For the moment a fall and a twisted ankle was all she needed to fear.

  Looking back over her shoulder would be a waste of energy and distance. She’d had a good hundred yards’ lead at the start, and by the time her surprised pursuers could have reached the hilltop to acquire her trail, she would have lengthened that out.

  The men coming after her would also be “blown” by their climb and would need to get their breath back. More time and space in her favor. As long as she kept moving, there was little chance they could get within pistol-caliber range before she’d drawn them into the target zone. All she had to do was to stay in their sight and keep them chasing and not thinking.

  Of course, all this was predicated on Jon’s plan working and on Randi’s observation that the arms smugglers hadn’t brought a sniper with them. If either of them were wrong…There was no sense in worrying about it. If they were, she’d find out presently. As she ran along the landward edge of the piled shore ice she tossed a three-fingered Girl Guide’s salute to the rocky point of land a mile ahead.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  South Coast, Wednesday Island

  “How are you doing?” Smith glanced across the compacted snow foxhole.

  “I say again, I’m just fine!” Randi snapped back. “God, Jon, don’t hover!”

  “You’re getting cranky,” Smith approved. “That’s a good sign.”

  “I’m not…” She caught herself, then grinned sheepishly. “Really, I’m okay. You’re a good doctor.”

  They were forted up atop a point of land that buckled outward from the southern flank of the island, a position that gave them both concealment and an overwatch of the shoreline to the east and west. Over the past few days the grip of the pack had solidified, the only differentiation now between the sea and shore being that the sea ice was the more broken and irregular.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Thanks. I’ve been out of general practice for a while and I was afraid my technique was a little rusty.”

  Randi lifted a hand off the stock of Valentina’s model 70 and wriggled her gloved fingers. “None of them have fallen off yet.”

  “Still, I want you to see a good dermatologist when we get out of here. You might sluff some skin, and your hands are going to have to be watched for infection.”

  Randi sighed in a swirl of vapor. “Jon, trust me, your technique isn’t rusty in the least. You can fuss as well as any doctor I have ever known! Sophia would be proud of you.”

  There was a silent pause; then Randi took the awkwardness out of the moment with another smile. “She really would be, you know.”

  The moment was broken by the scrabble of boots and gloves on ice. Staying low in a fast hands-and-knees crawl, Gregory Smyslov snaked into the foxhole beside them. The Russian had established a second observation post deeper along the point that provided a better view eastward.

  “It has worked,” he said, panting a little. “Spetsnaz. Coming toward us along the coast trail.”

  “Where are they?

  “About a kilometer out, at the foot of the trail down from West Peak.”

  Smith glanced first at his watch and then toward a mound of snow at the edge of the foxhole. The cigarette lighter/transponder sat atop it, its antenna extended. “It’s working. We’re tolling them in. And the timing should be pretty good. How many?”

  “Six. They must have split their force again.”

  “Damn! I was hoping for the whole platoon.” Smith reached across and collected the transponder. Collapsing its antenna, he pocketed it. It had served its purpose.

  “The others are probably following,” Smyslov added.

  “Maybe, but they might not get here in time to do us or themselves any good. Let me have the glasses.”

  Smyslov unslung the binocular case and passed it to Smith. Coming up on his knees, Smith aimed the field glasses westward toward the science station, tracking along the flag-marked coastal trail.

  “Can you see her yet, Jon?” Randi inquired.

  “Not yet…Wait a minute. Yeah! There she is. She’s running.”

  In his magnified field of view he could make out Valentina trotting along, seemingly at ease, the red and green of her clothing, or rather Randi’s clothing, making her stand out against the sun-washed white of the terrain. Again the timing was about what he had hoped for. Elevating the glasses farther, he could make out the knoll with its radio mast that overlooked the science station. Smoke seemed to be rising from behind the hill, and on the side facing them flyspeck figures moved. A line of men hastened down toward the shoreline, pursuing that othe
r small, colorful dot that moved toward Smith’s position.

  “Val’s pulling in her share! Five…six…eight-damn, not as many as I’d like there, either.”

  Smith swiveled around 180 degrees and ran a scan down the east shore. There was the other half of the equation, the Spetsnaz force. Only one man followed the compacted pathway; the other five had fanned out on either side, scuffling along on snowshoes. The Russians were closer than the force advancing from the science station, but they were also moving slower. And so far, with the point blocking their line of sight, neither converging force had become aware of the other. Smith mentally computed times and distances. Yeah. It was going to be just about as good as they had any right to expect.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” he said, lowering the binoculars, “it’s coming together. Randi, give Val the word.”

  Randi gave the stainless steel signaling mirror a final quick buff on her sleeve. Squinting through the tiny sighting hole in its center, she acquired the dot on the snow that was Valentina Metrace. Angling the mirror, she produced a single flash that might be mistaken for a sun strike off the snow were you not looking for it.

  After a few moments the pursued dot glinted back.

  “She’s acknowledged,” Randi reported.

  “Right. That’s all we can do here. Let’s move out.”

  “I don’t like this, Jon,” Randi spoke vehemently under her breath. “I don’t like this part at all!”

  “I’m not crazy about it myself.” Through the glasses he could make out Val as a human figure moving effortlessly as if she were out for a morning’s jog. Leading your troops into battle is easy, Sarge. Having to leave them there, on their own, that’s the real bear.

  “She doesn’t even have a gun, damn it!”

  “She didn’t seem to think she’d need one.” Smith slammed the binoculars back into their case.

  “I do hope you realize that woman is just a hopeless showoff,” Randi said, binding on her bear-paw snowshoes.

  “Oh, yes, most definitely. And speaking about guns…” Smith drew his sidearm from the holster pocket of his parka, passing the automatic to Smyslov, butt first. “You might find use for this today, Major. This one works, guaranteed.”

  Smyslov grinned and accepted the P-226, stowing it in his pocket. “That is good to hear. I had a most disappointing experience with an American firearm not long ago.”

  Valentina Metrace was a predator and huntress by both instinctive nature and personal preference. But as a successful predator, she also understood what was required of a successful, i.e., survivable, prey animal.

  Staying alive as prey mandated you not only knew when to run but when, where, and how to hide, and the moment to break trail and disappear was almost upon her.

  The single mirror flash from the top of the point had told her Jon Smith’s plan was on track. The Spetsnaz were moving into the killing zone from the other side of the point. Two flashes would have meant a scrub and for her to keep going, pulling her pursuers under the fire of the long guns atop the point.

  As it was, their unknowing allies, the Spetsnaz, would hopefully do the job for them.

  Smith had orchestrated his engagement well. On the landward side a thirty-foot cliff rose above a narrowed boulder-strewn beach, while to seaward the point acted like the prow of a ship, building up an exceptionally jagged and tumbled pile of pressure ice. It was a natural choke point and a superb killing ground, leaving neither force room to maneuver or successfully disengage.

  All she had to do now was to squirm out from between their two fires, and the pressure ice jumble provided a magnificent maze to disappear into.

  Now Valentina started looking back. The men chasing her were perhaps a quarter mile behind and slowly closing. She’d been deliberately sandbagging her pace, allowing them to overtake her, dangling the prospect of bringing her within gun range as a lure.

  It was working.

  She had no clear idea of how close the Spetsnaz were, so she dare not waste any time. The instant she rounded the tip of the point, breaking the line of sight with her pursuers, she broke laterally into the sea ice, scrambling over the man-high pressure ridge at the beach edge.

  Crossing from the trail, Valentina carefully plotted each step and handgrip, hopping from one slab of snow-bared ice to the next like a person crossing a stream on stepping-stones, striving to minimize the trail she left. It would be impossible to leave no trace at all. Her pursuers would see where her boot tracks stopped on the main trail, but she was striving for confusion, to hold this one facet of the enemy in the killing zone for the arrival of the second.

  Working her way roughly twenty yards offshore, she swung westward again, like a canny white-tail buck circling behind its stalking hunter. Out here, the sea ice was a living thing-softer, green-tinged, buckling and breaking with the rise and sink of the tides and the drag of the currents. Whipping out the survival blanket she carried, Valentina donned it as a camouflage cloak, wearing the white side out. Sinking down, she wormed along on hands and knees, staying below the outer edge of the pressure ridge.

  She moved silently, but once she was almost startled into a yelp when a mushy emerald puddle of ice crystals erupted in front of her and she found herself literally nose to nose with an equally unnerved ring seal. Snorting in her face, the seal plunged back through his breathing hole, leaving her to reestablish her own breathing.

  Then she heard the voices to shoreward. Her hunters had come to the break in her trail. That was it. The time for running was over. Drawing the white protective sheeting closer, she merged into a notch in the pressure ridge. Drawing her legs up tightly against her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees, she assumed the pu ning mu position, the “hiding like a stone” of ninjutsu. She also drew the neck of the sweatshirt up and over her mouth and nose, breathing down into the garment to kill her breath plume. Valentina Metrace became just another block of ice.

  The pack beneath her creaked and sighed. The voices faded to an occasional fragmented mutter. By now the arms smugglers must have figured out what she had done and where she had gone. By now someone would be standing atop the pressure ridge, scanning with binoculars.

  He’d be looking for color and movement. If she denied her hunters both, she’d be immune, at least for a time. Unfortunately Randi Russell had given these men the slip in much this same way before. It was questionable that they’d just give up twice. They’d look. They’d think. They’d talk it over for a minute. Then they’d start probing into the sea ice after her.

  At least until the Russians walked in on them.

  Valentina focused on breathing without chest movement. This was no worse than sitting it out in a leopard blind, only she couldn’t see, and she was the one being set for. She pushed her other senses out beyond the second skin of the survival blanket, listening for the rasp of exertion breathing or the vibration of a footfall on ice. Her fingers eased into the sleeve of her sweater, their tips touching the hilt of the knife strapped to her forearm.

  Jon and the others should be well on their way by now. They’d be moving toward the station along the base of the ridge. With this batch of guns drawn off and theoretically engaged by the Spetsnaz, they’d have a better chance when they put the station and landing ground under sniper fire. Divide and conquer. Good strategy, Jon.

  She gulped and wished she could sneak a mouthful of snow. Let’s see, what to do should the Spetsnaz not show? Don’t wait to be fallen over. Jump and knife the nearest man. Drop the second closest with a throw. Commandeer a submachine gun and ammunition. Keep to the cover of the pressure ridge, maximize casualties, and buy Jon and Randi their time yourself.

  There, that was something of a plan anyway.

  Where in the hell were those bloody Russians? Wasn’t that just the way of the world? There was never a Bolshevik around when you needed one.

  Someone nearby gave a startled yell and an SMG chattered. Valentina went stark stiff for an instant, then realized there had been no
shock of a bullet impact. Another automatic weapon replied-the sharper, more piercing crackle of a small-caliber assault rifle. Valentina recognized an AK-74. The Spetsnaz had just put their foot in it!

  More shouts followed. A scream trailed off. The exchange of gunfire built explosively.

  Valentina allowed herself a full, deep breath. Blinking for a moment in the snow-refracted sunlight, she slipped out from under the camo blanket. Drawing one of her knives, she began to slither on her belly through the buckled ice, moving toward the heart of the burgeoning firefight.

  Jon’s orders had been specific. When their enemies engaged each other she was to fall back and disengage immediately. But Valentina had decided upon a loose definition of “immediate.” She intended to linger a bit, extending military assistance to both sides of the conflict.

  At the first crash of automatic weapons fire, Jon Smith had drawn up sharply and looked back. Then, when it was returned and built in volume, he managed a grin. That was a battle, not an execution.

  They’d been double-timing along the base of the central ridge, keeping out of sight of the shoreline trail. It had been snowshoe work and hard going, but they’d already covered a fair portion of the distance back to the science station. Now if they could only make the high ground overlooking the helipad and Kretek’s helicopter without being seen, they’d stand a chance of bitching somebody’s works.

  The question marks were Val and Randi. Would Val be able to get clear and rejoin, and could Randi keep it together? Randi was slumped against Smyslov with her eyes closed and with the concerned Russian half-supporting her as she gasped for breath. She was carrying neither pack nor weapon, and he couldn’t doubt her will. But running in snowshoes was murderous even for someone who hadn’t already been half-killed by hypothermia.

  “Randi?”

  She looked up, her shadow-rimmed eyes fierce. “Go!” she whispered. “Just go!”